2004 - The Reunion

by Sue Walker

  She took another drag as she let the stinging—and he had to admit truthful—accusation sink in. Then she was off again.

  “Anyway, don’t worry. I think we can handle all this. Certainly in the short term. I need to do some thinking. Bloody Dr Simon Calder! A loony, treating loonies. Bloody marvellous. Well, I’ve got plans for him. I’m not going to let him or anyone else get in the way. Never have, never will.”

  The bravado was loud and brash. But not totally convincing. He could see that under the showy veneer she was unsettled. Although he didn’t doubt that she wouldn’t let anyone get in her way. Never have, never will. Too true.

  PSYCHODRAMA

  The next few weeks

  File note from Dr Adrian Laurie, Consultant and Medical Director, APU

  21 December 1977

  RE: Patient, Alexandra Baxendale (d.o.b. 12.9.62)

  In consultation with Anna Cockburn, I am here recording some diagnostic notes concerning patient Alexandra Baxendale. I have today been considering whether to recommend the transfer of this patient to the main hospital, specifically to Ward 21, the secure facility.

  I and my nursing staff have noticed a distinct deterioration in her condition of late, exhibited by prolonged periods of sullenness and uncommunicativeness. Further, there have been unpredictable verbal outbursts against staff and patients, and at least two observed incidents of threats of physical violence.

  Alex continues to refuse to participate in group therapy and has been plagued by regular nightmares. These latter I have identified as coinciding with the playing of a ‘practical joke’ on the patient at the Christmas party, the reason for which we have been unable to uncover.

  The patient remains acutely disturbed. Indeed, although her admission to the Unit was followed by a brief improvement, she has shown a distinct deterioration in recent months.

  However, I have, on balance, decided against removing her from the Unit, judging that since all patients will be sent home soon for Christmas, we will reassess her on her return in the New Year. However, I have advised that Sister Cockburn should warn the patient’s parents to remain vigilant throughout the holiday break against any self-harm she may do, and caution them that the possibility of the patient acting out violently against others remains a real possibility.

  Copy to: Daily Nursing Log

  Copy to: patient file, A. Baxendale

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “How long’s Guy away for?”

  Alexandra Baxendale looked at her lover and smiled. “It’s one of those bloody Middle East jobs. Sucking up to the rag heads and all that. He’ll be gone at least a couple of months, thank God.”

  Her lover slid out of bed and stood naked, hands placed provocatively on thighs. “D’you think he knows? About us?”

  Alex threw her head back and roared. “Ha! You must be kidding! He’d be very, very cross. And I never like upsetting him because I like his money.”

  “But you’ve got your own money? You’re rich.”

  “Oh, my dear girl, you can never be too rich. This house is all mine, bought with the filthy proceeds of years in the City of London! But my prodigiously clever husband is really rich. And you don’t want to upset someone like him. Thing is, Guy probably wouldn’t mind if you were a bloke; We’ve had one or two threesomes with his mates in the past. But he’d be very pissed off knowing that I was fucking women.”

  “Women?”

  “Just a turn of phrase, darling. I’m only fucking you. No, fucking a woman would be too threatening to him. Guy’s pretty adventurous for an anally retentive, ex-public-school boy in his fifties. He loves me tying him up and giving him a good beating. He likes that more and more. It means he has to perform less and less, which I think he prefers, and it suits me. A couple of years ago he was having real trouble getting it up in straight sex. So I suggested a few…modifications”

  She watched as the slim outline of the girl, nearly half her age, disappeared into the bathroom. The mobile kicked off—she reached down, rinding it among the various items of underwear strewn on the floor. The sun picked out the faint scarring on her forearms that plastic surgery had almost obliterated. She paused a moment, as if seeing them for the first time.

  She was on her own now, thank God. She hadn’t particularly enjoyed the encounter. The girl was getting too nosy, too familiar. And very shortly, she’d get too clingy. She’d have to strategize a way out. Soon.

  She ran her fingers over her forearm. The faint raised scarring had her attention today. Some days were like that. Most of the time she forgot about them, and when others, such as lovers, noticed, and were insensitive enough to ask, she passed them off as some childhood accident. On one or two memorable occasions, she knew she’d met a fellow traveller. The fellowship of self-harmers. When that happened, they wordlessly compared scars and moved on. But Laurie had never allowed her to move on when it came to those scars…

  “And so, Alexandra, we can all see how new some of those wounds are on your arms. Would you tell us please when you did them? Where were you, what was going on?”

  Silence.

  She’d made sure to wear a vest, and crossed her arms more firmly than before, the purplish red zigzags on show for all to see. She was glad to see some of the jolly company wince. Simon for one. Fucking pansy! Danny had just raised an eyebrow. Bastard! Laurie was looking round the room, checking them all out and inviting others to ask the obvious. But no joy today for Laurie. He’d have to try again.

  “Well, Alex? Apart from the fact that I think it would do you good to talk about it, I think you owe it to the others to explain why you’ve come back after the Christmas break in this state.”

  Silence.

  “Isn’t anyone else interested to know?”

  Nothing.

  “Well, let me enlighten you all. Alex has been having a pretty bad time of it at home this past week or two. You ran away overnight. Twice. And then your parents locked you in your room. They found you some hours later, on Christmas Eve, with cuts on your arms so severe that you spent several hours in casualty during the early hours of Christmas morning. Would you tell us why, Alex?”

  “Get tae fuck!”

  “Would anyone else like to ask Alex how she is?”

  “Al—”

  “Shut it, Lydia!”

  Danny had shut the fat bitch up. Good. Though his smile and wink were no friendly act. And Laurie wasn’t going to let him get away with it anyway.

  “Danny, why did you cut Lydia off? No matter, Lydia, speak up. What did you want to say to Alex?”

  And the cow was squirming now. Wanting to be seen as Miss Goody-Goody in front of Laurie. But Danny had his ‘don’t fuck with me’ face on. Tough choice!

  “I…I just…just wanted to ask Alex if she’d hurt herself because she was upset at what happened before Christmas. At the raffle.”

  She’d lost it then and launched herself at the fat cow. It took half the room to drag her off, and one or two of her cuts opened up again, smearing blood all over Lydia’s stupid dress and her fat, ugly face. Fantastic!

  Laurie had forced her to apologize to Lydia, then made her sit back down and talk about Christmas. But she’d not talked about the raffle.

  No, she’d got the message.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  She pondered Simon’s address list for a last time, staring at the most worrying entry of all, until it blurred out of focus, and finally threw the sheet of paper on to her desk. She sat back and looked down from the converted attic that was her office, to the garden below. The rain was unremitting, pebble-dashing Guy’s greenhouse and turning her carp pond into a boiling cauldron.

  She fingered the photos in front of her, stopping at one. The rows of sullen faces, with just a glimpse of the beauty of the Argyll countryside behind their heads. At least the staff were trying. Ranj, Anna and Sarah were all sporting tight smiles. As well they should. Ranj’s fancy camera had taken a clear picture that day, the expressions finely delineated. As for the patient
s? Their surly features would mean nothing to others. The atmosphere that still emanated from that one curling photograph made Alex feel like it had been snapped yesterday. She shivered, and spread out the sheaf of other photos. Funny she hadn’t kept up with her photography. She’d really been into it. The posh camera her parents had bought her—presumably to de-guilt-trip themselves over her admission to the Unit—had been well used. The camera dub at school had been one of the better ones. She’d been good at taking her subjects unawares, even in secret, though not intentionally, well…maybe, sometimes. There was a little bit of the voyeur in her, she had to admit. She half smiled at the thought and shuffled through the pack, each image setting off a crystal-dear memory…

  Sister Anna writing up reports in the Nurses’ Office, hot as hell to look at. But cold and controlling in bed, she’d been sure. Pretty cold and controlling as a nurse, come to think of it.

  Sister Anna and Dr Laurie in conference in the therapy room. He’d always had a hard-on for Anna, and dear Sister had known it. And enjoyed it. And played around with him. Same old, same old.

  Ranj in the garden: clever, good nurse under the circumstances. And knowing. Sadly, not knowing enough.

  Student nurse Sarah coming upstairs on night duty, her first night duty…

  “You’ll be fine, I’m sure. But any problems, ring extension five three five. It’s a number that operates only at night. That’ll get you through to the main hospital night-duty desk, just down the road. Okay?”

  Alex opened the record-room door another half inch. She could see both Anna and Sarah perfectly clearly under the hall light outside the Nurses’ Office. Anna had her.coat on and was giving Sarah a final pat on the shoulder.

  “Those who need it have all had their night medication. They’ll sleep like babies. Some babies, eh? Right, see you tomorrow morning at the handover. Bye now.”

  Alex checked her watch. Ten o’clock. Bloody hell, Anna had certainly overstayed to check Sarah would be okay. She’d be okay, all right. She listened as Sarah set the locks, and her footsteps started clicking along the hallway. She heard her stop at the TV room, and there was a muffled instruction to whoever was in there to switch it off and get to bed in ten minutes.

  Alex busied herself with the pile of 455 on the floor. A creak of the door. She turned round, still at a crouch, and raised an eyebrow at Sarah.

  “Ten minutes, Alex. Then it’s time for bed.”

  She didn’t answer. Just smiled.

  Fifteen minutes later, she finished swilling out the toothpaste, wiped her mouth and pulled the bathroom light-cord. The upstairs corridors were in near darkness now. As she walked towards the female dorm, she saw Sarah approach from the other end. She must have been checking on the others. At the night-duty bedroom door she watched Sarah stop with her hand on the handle and look up.

  Alex met her gaze. But didn’t smile this time. Neither did the nurse. By the time Alex had reached the night-duty bedroom, Sarah was inside, the door shut.

  Everyone else was asleep. Carrie had definitely had Largactil tonight. She’d seen Sarah giving her a dose earlier. Maybe Lydia too. Whatever, the fat cow was off for the night, snoring away, drugs or no drugs. Alex stripped down to skimpy tight t-shirt and knickers, and lay down on top of the covers. It was cold but somehow she didn’t feel it. She wasn’t staying long.

  It took only the gentlest of knocks. Sarah was standing in darkness as Alex moved uninvited into the nurse’s bedroom. She closed the door with a click and stayed leaning against it. There was a momentary stand-off. For a flicker, Alex thought she’d blown it. Then, in silence, Sarah reached around her to turn the lock, and with her other hand lifted up Alex’s t-shirt, her touch warm on her shivering belly…

  “You can’t stay here, Alex! Neither can I! Anna’s got to stay behind because Innes has the flu. But you’ve got to go. Everyone has. We just can’t stay. Neither of us. You must see that?”

  Alex watched as Sarah crouched down by the stream and began rinsing through the last of the group’s breakfast dishes, constantly looking around her like a timid animal. Just like when they were in the Unit these last few weeks, when Sarah couldn’t help flashing nervy looks over her shoulder, as if she expected Anna, Lydia, Ranj, Danny, anybody to come running up pointing accusing fingers. Alex looked away from her. There were no witnesses. Only acres of desolate Argyll countryside. The bloody group were back at the huts, cursing the failure of the hot and cold water system, and packing their rucksacks for the day’s orienteering and night-under-canvas expedition.

  Sarah was still refusing to look at her. Alex tried to get her attention for the umpteenth time. “But why do you have to go? Why can’t you look after fucking Innes, then I can ‘get ill’ too? Once bloody Innes is asleep, we’ll have the whole night to ourselves.”

  She wasn’t winning. Sarah was shaking her head, still bent over the dishes. “No, Alex. A senior member of staff has to stay behind if someone’s ill. And that’s going to be Anna. That’s just the rules.”

  “Fuck it! I thought this stupid holiday was going to give us some time away from the others. Fine. Okay. What about just a couple of hours tonight, then? I thought we could sneak away at the orienteering thing. If you make sure we’re in the same team, it’ll be easy.”

  Sarah was looking at her, at last. She stood up. Was she going to kiss her? Relent? Agree to an adventure tonight?

  “That’s not going to happen, Alex. It’s too dangerous. I can’t just disappear with you and leave Ranj to look after everyone. What the hell’s he going to think?” She was taking a step back now. “Look, I’ve been meaning to say this…I mean, speak to you for a while. Things…things are…well…they’re getting out of hand, don’t you think? We’ve got to be careful. You still want to see me, don’t you, after you’re discharged, when we can…do things…I mean, see each other more safely? Maybe we should hold off until then. Just for while? Well…? Say something, Alex.”

  She didn’t know if she was already shivering from the cold or if it had just started. She felt sick and stumbled back as Sarah tried to touch her arm. “What? Whaft What’re you trying to do to me? You said before we left the Unit that the camping holiday would be ‘perfect’ for us. Your very words. Perfect. And what have you done since we arrived? Tried to avoid me every fucking day. And now it’s our last day. You’re a shit, Sarah! Happy to fuck and fumble on night duty, when you’ve drugged everyone else up to the eyeballs. Well, just you wait! I’ll fucking show you. You can get struck off for what you’ve done! Struck off! If not put in bloody prison! I’ll show you!”

  She felt the heat of the tears on her cold face, and turned and ran, tripping over a dead tree root, Sarah’s last words fading behind her.

  “Stop it, Alex! Stop! Don’t do anything stupid! Anyway, no one’ll believe you! No one! Think about it. I’m telling you…”

  TWENTY-NINE

  She wandered through the empty house, sipping from the over-full glass of cognac, trying to ignore the battering of the rain, and the now howling wind ripping through the trees in the garden. Guy had woken her up calling from Dubai and telling her how much he missed her. Nauseating. She sat uneasily by the French windows. The light was off, and outside she could make out various swaying shapes, including the tendrils of the delicate young silver birches, standing sentry, halfway down the garden.

  She’d brought some of the photos downstairs and placed them on the dining table, her hand resting over them, as if to shield them from others’ prying eyes. She was glad Guy was away for the next few weeks. She needed both privacy and solitariness. She’d be happy to wish him away forever. It was a farce. A mockery. They both knew—though you’d have to torture it out of him to get Guy to ever admit it—that their marriage was a bloody sham, one of convenience. She’d regretted it almost as soon as she’d done it. But it had seemed a…a…useful…even prudent, thing to do at the time. She’d been trying to make a very difficult transition from years of hard working and living in London, and
make it as a big metropolitan fish back in Edinburgh. And start a new career as an internet entrepreneur. She’d always been a pretty good networker, until she’d burned a few too many bridges. It was when the City got all PC and so-called ‘workplace bullying’ was the buzz phrase. Bullying. Bollocks. If people couldn’t keep up, then they should be out on their ear—man or woman. She’d never had any truck with women who moaned about the City being hard for a woman. Sure, you had to be a ball-breaker. But women could and did—at least the successful ones did—use all their charms to great effect, herself included. Granted, if you were a guy, you had more strenuous ways of getting what you wanted. She’d known of senior traders kicking underlings in the balls in the Gents, of fist fights in the champagne-swilling watering holes of EC2, and a myriad of other episodes that would chill ordinary folk to the bone. What was unfair was that when she felt entitled to do the same, she was penalized for it. Just because of her gender. God, it would have been funny, if it hadn’t ended up with her head on the block…

  “Alex, none of this is being officially recorded. Frankly, it’s to save the company’s good name and not your own, sadly now tarnished. There is no doubt that you punched, kicked, slapped, and scratched Louise Bailey, one of your team’s most junior traders, in the women’s toilets of Corney & Barrow. I concede that there were no independent witnesses. But those who were in your group in the bar noted your disappearance to the toilets at the same time as Louise, and another female team member found Louise in what can only be described as an hysterical state, on the floor of a cubicle, bruised and bleeding. You had apparently left the premises.”